Kevin Dent is a business developer and entertainment industry professional who has some notable ties to his name. Dent was involved with companies like PlayHaven, Hands-On Entertainment, and was the COO of P4RC Inc., – a company that once had Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter on as the director for a short time. Dent was also a chair person for the IGDA a few years back. It’s safe to say that Kevin Dent has some weight in the games industry. So why is a writer from Giant Bomb using the Game Journo Pros group to get other editors, writers and site owners not to quote, talk to or engage with Dent? Well, Patrick Klepek and the other Game Journo Pros explain it in their e-mails.

According to e-mails from Patrick Klepek, a journalist who writes for Giant Bomb, he made a request to the Game Journo Pros group not to quote Kevin Dent anymore. An image from the e-mail is below.

This was followed up with a post by Digital Trends movie and games editor, Adam Rosenberg, who didn’t question or have any problems with Klepek’s request.

Some of the members were actually baffled about why Kevin Dent should be ignored or denied any sort of interview or media attention. It was explained by Klepek and a few others that Dent was allegedly an attention-seeker, and that he was sexist and “a creep”. Another screencap helps sum up the impression of Kevin Dent by the Game Journo Pros.

You can read the Tumblr post about Kevin Dent here [backup]. It is, of course, a scathing depiction of Dent.

Funnily enough, it was once mentioned that Patrick Klepek was like the puppy dog of the Game Journo Pros group, but here we get to see him show his fangs.

After some more banter and some recounts of encounters with Dent, a few more members reiterated the need to keep away from him, with Giant Bomb’s Alex Navarro stating…

This was followed up with Wired contributor Andrew Groen posting the following message.

For your information: “HHG” stands for HipHop Gamer, an independent video game media figure who was often the subject of discussion in the GJP, usually under negative connotations.

I reached out to Kevin Dent to ask him if he knew about this soft “blacklisting” and how he felt about a group of some of the top gaming journalists in the industry wielding the power to deny someone their voice.

Dent requested not to have his comments posted publicly, but did mention that he doesn’t mind what they say or do at this point, and isn’t worried about no longer being quoted or interviewed by them.

I reached out to Patrick Klepek, the one who started the thread topic in the Game Journo Pros, to see if he still felt that way about Kevin Dent, but at the time of the publishing of this article, he has not responded.

It’s an ominous thing to know that a secret group of some of the top industry media professionals can dictate and decide who gets coverage and who doesn’t. This occurred at various points throughout the Game Journo Pros, including someone who defended the presence of women in the industry… Russ Roegner, who was the recipient of the internet term “dogpiling”, where he was bombarded for his viewpoints by people within a select clique. Notables who propagated and “watched his career burn” were Ben Kuchera, Rami Ismail, and Leigh Alexander (which is where the infamous Megaphone quote came from), to name but a few of the usual suspects.

As noted in the Game Journo Pros, Roegner’s career was over before it really even began due to his tweets…

Career suicide based on an opposing viewpoint? Why?

We’ve recently seen how select media groups can pressure digital distributors into moving games off platforms, and we also see how these same groups of people can control how professionals within the games industry can have their careers put on display in the media spotlight (or have the media spotlight taken away) via collective consensus.

It’s also amazing how dissenting views to those peddled by a select group who control the media entertainment circuit can dictate the outcome of someone’s life, career and industry opportunities. It’s no different than how reporting on an illegal crowd-funding campaign can result in being – by the very definition of some state laws – blacklisted from the industry.

[Disclosure: I was a former member of the Game Journo Pros e-mail group]

And here I thought Klepek was just dumb. Apparently he’s actively malicious as well.

Also, I wonder how IncrediRoe is doing. I’m honestly still mad about Leigh’s “I’M A MEGAPHONE” idiocy. And Rami was just as petty as her.

Ms_Fortune

Impressive, topkek plays the innocent quite well but in reality is just as big an asshole as the rest of them.

Generaallucas .

I love how Rami just keeps shouting around that there is nothing to be seen.

Oh, and that Dutch #GamerGate is of course 50 highly educated men hating women.

Twei Lim Lou

I can’t believe I missed / overlooked the dutch part a year ago….

Depressing / disappointed
Probably mentally could not believe the dutch would also have these kinds of people =/

Generaal

Dutch GG has come a long way since last year. The ”students-group” (HKU, NHTV, Roc A12, Friesche poort, Saxion, HAN, etc.) has grown from 6 people on october 23rd 2014 to 41 today, with only 2 leaving because they quitted their studies. Then we had our little meeting at the RvdJ press media council against EénVandaag, Rogier Kahlmann and his little investigations and of course GGinNL a month back. We’re also quite… e-celleby, so to speak.

It’s fun, but a lot just want the ride to end… so we are now digging, fact-checking in our little groups and then forwarding it to the government without telling KiA and /gghq/. Fun 😛

Alex Murdoc

And some people are saying “GamerGate has already won!”
No, we haven’t won yet.
As long as these people–and I use that term loosely–still have their jobs, we haven’t won.

C G Saturation

That’s how I feel as well. The game industry has literally become a place where a small clique of extremely hypocritical friends aggressively dictate how everyone else MUST think and act.

Anyone defending such an industry is either ignorant, selfish, part of the clique or all three. It has to change, and the first step is to hold those people accountable.

Rene Caron

It’s not just the game industry. 2014 is the year fact-checking died in the mainstream media all around the world. Journalists used to run the news, now a little cabal of ideologues runs hit pieces where one side is painted as pristine and innocent and the other side is painted as an incarnation of Satan.

DirkBelig

^^ This. We just discussed this during last night’s taping of Culture Vultures Radio in recapping how #GamerGate, the total collapse of Rolling Stone’s UVA gang rape story, Lena Dunham’s smearing of an innocent man as her rapist, New York magazine reporting a teenager made $72 million trading stocks only to have that turn out false, and the rioting in Ferguson all stem from the corrupt, dishonest, biased media operating on the basis of having an ideological agenda they want advanced by any means necessary, facts be damned.

Idiots are defending the nearly-total fabrications of Rolling Stone on the premise that “it doesn’t matter if she wasn’t raped, we need to raise awareness.” Uh, no. You don’t obtain justice by committing injustice. The Ferguson riots and the whole “Hands up, don’t shoot!” mantra stem from a media wanting race war and willing to fan the flames for good television ratings. CNN put a guy on as a “forensic expert” who didn’t have any credentials and he put out the lies that Michael Brown was shot in the back and/or was surrendering. None of this was true as multiple REAL autopsies and the grand jury agreed with. But because the media had repeated the meme that Brown was a “gentle giant” who was obviously randomly assassinated by a racist cop – because that’s all cops do; go around murdering black men because – because black, people refused to accept reality and torched the city based on the media’s sloppiness and malice.

The problem is “journalists” these days aren’t reporters with curiosity who got into the business to bring information to the world, but predominantly pampered Trustafarians who go to Columbia Journalism School with their fellow privileged kids and then slide into coastal elite media outfits with an agenda of “changing the world” and then reporting – or flat out fabricating – the stories needed to bamboozle people into going along with their desired agendas. The hack responsible for the UVA rape travesty was proudly admitting that she’d shopped around for just the right story to tell in order to make the “rape culture” myth as vivid and shocking to the world, choosing UVA because “it didn’t have a militant feminist structure seeking to upend the patriarchy” (slight paraphrase) because everyone knows those Southern university frat boys wallow in their white male privilege and rape because white male Southerners. (Just like the Duke lacrosse team, right?) It’s depressing.

People need to realize if the GJP had gone on, there’s a good chance these journos would have abused their sway and resorted to long term smear tactics against people they dislike. With all those media outlets in tow showing little to no control of their journalists (Sam Biddy – not a typo – comes to mind), a lot of lives could have been ruined.

What do you mean “had gone on”? I don’t think it ever stopped. Smaller group with less fat and an upgrade to a 2.0 echo-chamber. That’s the likelihood of it all. I think the movers and pushers are laying low until the heat blows over and then we’ll go right back to what we had before.

None of the people on Twitter threatening blacklists seem concerned or repentant at all. It gives me the impression that certain people are still doing what they do.

Generaallucas .

They are. I think it has even gotten worse.

Ah, well, let’s see what happens. If they keep breaking laws like this, the government will take notice. (Especially because of the FTC and the ”death threats” that the FBI investigates.)

C G Saturation

Yeah, I haven’t seen even the slightest bit of remorse from them. Some seem to have become bolder in openly abusing and threatening innocents, because they suffered zero accountability even after their on-going corruption and bullying were exposed. They know they can get away with it now. I’m certain they’re still collaboratively doing even more terrible things behind the scenes.

Meittimies

If Journopros was any indication, a lot of these hacks had learned absolutely nothing from that disaster.

But you also make a good point. I have no doubt that it’s permanently stopped and there are groups out there acting just the same way as the GJP list.

C G Saturation

In before people start misdirecting to soggy knees.

Archfriend

“we as a collective industry…” says Alex Navarro, proving the collectivist mindset of these authoritarian groupthinkers. All of these GJP listers have absolutely 0 credibility, and have tarnished their publications forever.

anonme

Honestly, it was the Russ Roegner thing that got me into Gamergate. I watched a poor guy get murdered on twitter, for nothing more than not liking Rami Ismal’s article on Gamasutra. And they destroyed him. So When GamerGate came around, I remembered this incident. And now I find out game journo pros just stood back and watched? And some of them cheered? How is this “no big deal”? How can they claim this is normal?

Cyberxion

But it’s just a bunch of journalist buddies having totally normal, not at all concerning conversations, dude!

Yeah, those people are shit-stacks.

SergeantKozi

All because of a simple opinion. What these intellectual midgets don’t seem to understand is that SOME people need to see real evidence of a problem before they buy into it. Popular opinion is not enough to sway them. Anecdotal evidence is not enough to sway them. Testimony is not enough. Even if you believe the stories of women who have been harassed in the industry, that doesn’t paint it as a widespread epidemic like these people make it out to be.

Considering WOMEN game developers, like the one at Naughty Dog whose name escapes me at the moment, I think. I dunno, my mind is fucked. Someone high up in a big company totally said this, and I don’t recall anyone dog piling on HER.

Such infuriating, hyper emotional nonsense.

Meittimies

If the gaming industry and gaming as an art form is to mature, these colluding journos absolutely NEED to be removed from the community. There is a reason why Journopros was disbanded and one guy lost his job because of it. No amount of “GJP is fine, theres nothing wrong with that!” is going to change the fact theres nothing moral or right with GJP, if discussions and decisions like this are going in there.

GJP is not a group of people gathering to seek the Truth together, it is a den of hacks deciding what kind of spin of lies theyre going to spread next.

If GJP really is as harmless as they claim, then they better prove it and make all of their discussions public. What are they afraid of?

ScewMadd

Thanks for all the work William. The GameJournoPros list, if nothing else, at least gathered all of their abhorrent behaviour in one place for dissemination, and for use as evidence against them. Simply put, this controversy will not go away until there is a serious level of reform and gaming becomes a free marketplace of ideas, which it unfortunately is not, particularly in the indie scene. This clique of people are, however, extremely attached to and emotionally invested in an ideology that crumbles to dust in that sort of environment, so they are naturally staunchly opposed to it.

Fenrir007

And some people will still claim it’s a “conspiracy” or how we are overblowing it.

ghostlife

It is a conspiracy. What it isn’t is a conspiracy theory; it’s no longer a theory, because it’s been outright proven. It’s like how “the government tracks everybody’s online activities” was a tinfoil-hat-level conspiracy theory 10 years ago, but now it’s just a conspiracy

Fenrir007

You are right, I forgot the “theory” part. I dun goofed.

GDI

According to his timeline Russ Roegner seems to have laid low. Before reminding him of this awful incident be aware he might just want to stay totally out of it even though Gamergate is now fully sympathetic.

Russ

That was my original intention though lately I have been quite busy. I’d love to write an article or do a talk at some point, should time permit.

aRunning_Maniac

“…we as a collective industry would do well to pretend he no longer exists. He is VALUELESS.”

This kind of attitude is alarming. You’re a journalist and you’re acting like this? Fucking unreal.

I used to be such a huge fan of Giant Bomb… I had a premium account and everything; watched nearly every piece of content they had. It’s so upsetting to see Klepek and Navarro engage in such a manner. I mean, here they come across as such pricks, so judgmental and spiteful. And these were the individuals that I trusted when it concerned all things gaming. I gave these assholes money. I fucked up. =/

I know how you feel, man. I followed GB back in the Whiskey Media days, right up until a year (?) ago when I couldn’t bear how garbage-tier the site had become. Premium account, t-shirts, P4 Endurance run, Big Live Live shows, Vinny + Jeff QLs, all down the drain. All for naught. I knew Patrick and Alex would turn out to be shitters, but Jeff coming out and shitting on gamers in general* was so fucked up. This fucking dude’s entire LIFE is about video games, and he has the gall to call anyone else a “gross” gamer? This motherfucker’s garage is filled to the god-damn brim with arcade machines and archaic consoles/accessories, it’s so absurd to see him spew this vile rhetoric in a pathetic, mid-life-crisis-esque attempt to “fit in” with hipster pseudo-intellectuals who find “identifying as a gamer” as “disgusting”. Great job, Jeff, a round of applause for the man who prefers the company of people that hate gamers rather than your core fucking audience.

I cannot trust those dudes anymore. Maybe if Drew and Vinny did their own show and broke away, I’d go watch them instead

DirkBelig

>”it’s so absurd to see him spew this vile rhetoric in a pathetic, mid-life-crisis-esque attempt to “fit in” with hipster pseudo-intellectuals who find “identifying as a gamer” as “disgusting”.

We’ve done several episodes of Culture Vultures Radio with segments on GamerGate dating back to September and in November did a massive two-part deep dive into various aspects of the topic and I identified a common thread between people like Leigh Alexander and #FullMcIntosh and the developer on Gamasutra who was calling for games to stop being about fun and focusing more on injustice, etc.

As I contrasted the devs whimpering to Alexander’s statements about how game reviews shouldn’t be like consumer electronics reviews with dull recitations of how the AI is and the mechanics work and whether it’s worth $60 and a gamer’s time and they should be pushing the form to contemplate the Deep Social Issues not being proper addressed by games about shooting aliens (“Don’t you know that the Xenomorph in Aliens games is actually the victim because it represent indigenous peoples oppressed by Imperialist expansion and oppression under the jackbooted heels of white cismales who refuse to check their privilege?!? DON’T YOU?!?!?”) I came to realize a simple truth: These people hate themselves and their jobs delivering games or critiques to people they loathe and would sooner rid themselves of so they can get down to concentrating on their feels about injustice and stuff. “Stupid gamers! Stupid games! They should be DEAD!!! I want to do Real Important Stuff, not simple entertainment for the unwashed heathen masses!”

Once you recognize the self-loathing of many of the anti-GG players and how they wish to be Important Intellectual Icons and not just some schlub reviewing twaddle for morons, it becomes stunningly clear what animates their coordinated rage. Add on the fact that YouTubers like boogie2988 and Total Biscuit have around two million subscribers – let’s not even mention South Park’s fave, PewDiePie with his eleventy gazillion viewers, raking in $4 million per year – and they really, really, really, really hate their readers/viewers/customers for being mouth-breathing hicks compared to the perfumed and anointed elites at Polygon etc. “How dare those idiots amass such huge followings just telling people what they want to know about?!? How dare they ignore the Struggle Against Patriarchy?!? Let’s Play? NO!!! We must Fight The Power!!!!”

TL;DR: Anti-GGer hate themselves, hate games, hate fun, and most especially hate gamers who just want to have fun when there’s so much patriarchy needing smashing.

Cinnamon267

“Anti-GGer hate themselves, hate games, hate fun”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You folks have lost it, now. All this is pure comedy at this point.

mkelton19

That is simply his opinion… which is based on his observations of their behavior. The nasty things they say about their own audience, the deceitful tactics they employ and endorse, and just overall the way they present themselves to the world. They act like self appointed arbiters of moral and ethical standards, but to most people they just come off as pricks with no common decency.

Can you really blame the guy above for concluding that people exhibiting such behavior must be self-loathing? I can’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s precisely the case for at least some of them.

Cinnamon267

“which is based on his observations of their behavior”
That he selectively sees or has been curated by like minded individuals on forums.

“The nasty things they say about their own audience”

Members of the audience bring this upon themselves with the knee-jerk childish reactions they love to employ…. for no real logical reason.

mkelton19

On the first point you are making a strong assumption about the inner workings of someone else’s mind and the way in which they reached their own conclusions. You know as well as I that such an argument can’t hold water and in no way addresses the broader issue.

In my own opinion, the fact that you started your reply with such strong (and rather knee-jerk) assumptions about someone you don’t even know, is evidence (not proof, evidence) to me that you have zero willingness to make a genuine effort to relate to his point of view, and thus zero willingness to participate in an open-minded discussion. In other words, in regards to people with opposing views to your own, your modus operandi is not talking *to* them… it’s talking *at* them. But hey, I’d love for you to prove my impression of you incorrect.

In regards to your second point, I’ll just say that when a small army of “journalists” suddenly (and virtually all at once) start publishing articles with clickbait headlines like “Gamers are dead” or “Gamers are misogynists” or “Gamers are a Dying Breed… Good Riddance” (just to name a few out of like… hundreds of ridiculous articles)… well it’s not a knee-jerk reaction for gamers to speak out against it. Not in *any* sense of the word. It’s patently absurd to think gamers don’t have a right, or aren’t justified when they decide to vocalize their disdain for the way they’re being pigeonholed as a culture full of violent, dirty, rapist pricks.. when in fact gamers come from all walks of life, from young to old, male and female and everything in between, from across the spectrum of social class, and from a diverse variety of ethnic backgrounds. I could keep telling you just how diverse gaming culture is, but the point is that popular media outlets tried to put us all in a single box with one label but doing so is just about as stupid an idea as a person can have. And you’re indignant that gamers got up in arms about that? I’d honestly like to know why you think that way.

Cinnamon267

“relate to his point of view”

His point of view is that of an individual who has lost perspective. Which is not uncommon for gamer groups. Or Internet groups, in general.

I’ve had posts deleted from Polygon because my calling out the censorious hypocrisy of the editor – “Don’t like our enlighted progressive values? Then take your Breitbart-reading anti-feminist ass out of our site and start your own He-Man Woman-Haters site!” – and posts deleted and banned from The Mary Sue for daring to inject facts* into their insular hugbox of self-delusion. I’d always wondered why everyone at TMS was commenting as if they weren’t getting information from the outside world and that incident showed me why.

* Someone said that GG was dying down because “the order was given to stay off Twitter” (by whom to whom, I asked?) and that since they only saw a few posts per hour on their feed, that proved the hatefest had died out. I posted Topsy stats showing a consistent average of 40K #GG tweets per day and they flat out refused to accept the linked evidence because it didn’t match their feels. One snowflake was simultaneously applauding the mods for moving to ban anyone violating the hugbox safe space one sentence after saying that dissenting viewpoints may occasionally be good. Unreal.

mkelton19

Why these people voluntarily submit to serving a fascist, totalitarian agenda is something I will never understand.

Falcus

Finally hard, indisputable evidence that GameJournoPro is journos colluding with evil ends, such as blacklists and controlling the narrative.
An elite controlling the information and the workers in the industry is called socialism. Or national socialism, if the govt doesn’t try to stop this.

just a comment

“An elite controlling the information and the workers in the industry” isn`t socialism or even national socialism, that´s just part of every existing social order.

Jess

They can hardly keep pulling the Officer Barbrady routine about GameJournoPros. These people will do anything to safeguard the sanctity and purity of their clique. Disgusting.

Knightwing19

That might be the dumbest thing said in this comment section. What’s disgusting is people like you with your heads so far up your own ass that you “Listen and Believe” lies over taking a moment and checking out the facts.

Here is one big fact for you Jess,
If #GamerGate was about harassment then why hasn’t there been one piece of single evidence proving GamerGate’s involvement in harassment? Thousands of supporters have asked for proof time and again just to be “blocked” or ignored.
Zoe Quinn the women anti-GamerGate wants to bring up all the time recently proclaimed to #GamerGate that she was in possession of “16 GB of data proving GamerGate is about harassment” but again has released nothing.
Why is that?
If she releases the data then it would kill GamerGate right that very moment so why is she keeping these “files” to herself?
Because they don’t exist that’s why. It’s a smokescreen to cover up corruption between, (as we’ve seen through actual evidence), gaming journalists and indie developers.

Jess

I think you’ve misunderstood me love. I’m talking about GameJournoPros and the socipathic manner in which they think they can crush anybody they deem to be impure.

It’s cute (and slightly bizarre) you assumed I’m an AGGro though. c:

Knightwing19

Going over the article again and re-reading your comments I want to apologize for calling your comments dumb. I did misread your comments and unlike games journalists I can admit when I’m wrong and apologize.
Sorry again for misreading your comments.

video game journalism is evil because people are friends with other people in the industry

real hard hitting stuff here 10/10 A+

Madfoot713

I know I like to sit around with my friends and discuss which people I would like to see blacklisted from having a job. That’s normal, “just friends” behavior.

Mub

yeah?? thats how actual people talk to each other?? I mean when a dudes a massive creep and weirdo and is the subject of discussion stuff like this usually comes up unless you’ve never had an actual conversation with other people in your workplace about your job??

oh wait anime avatar lmao

countryfried

Except these people don’t work together, they work at competing news outlets. This is collusion whether you want to admit it or not, and in any other industry these people would have lost their jobs, yet you applaud and support them for working together to oust a person from an industry because a couple of assholes think the guy is creepy and has an opinion that doesn’t tow their party line. Why do you support corruption? What the members of this mailing list are engaging in is illegal and unethical. They no longer represent their customers and need removing from an industry which they will destroy if they are allowed to continue.

Mub

or maybe he’s a toxic asshole who only serves to make the industry worse and his toxic comments are getting him what he deserves?

Is having friends really corruption? Does this mean I should stop talking to all my friends in the same career path as me but working for competition because it breaks the ethical sanctity of working in a hardware store??

Mub

shit you know what i should we need more ETHICAL hardware in this country

Nah, I don’t banhammer people over here for trolling. Only curbs discussion.

Dropping banhammers also kills a community pretty quickly because everyone becomes afraid of speaking their mind. So the whole point of opening things up over here was so people could say whatever they wanted to without the worry of being banhammered.

Mub

i love how you sham censorship and now are talking about censoring me nice job nerd

Mub

oh no……….. ive been “owned”

what ever shall i do know after this epic “ownage”

countryfried

nerd-shaming. is that you Sam?

A Real Libertarian

Does this mean I should stop talking to all my friends in the same career path as me but working for competition because it breaks the ethical sanctity of working in a hardware store??

If you’re plotting how to drive your mutual competitors out of business via blacklisting, then yes.

Why is he toxic to begin with? His opinion isn’t the same as theirs so therefore his opinion toxic? Damn. It is corruption because everyone of these people on the GJP work for different company’s, and they are working together to prevent a person from having an opinion that they don’t agree with getting any press. That is censorship. You could call it black listing because the GJP group are the gate keepers of the gaming press.

I ask again, why do you support the corrupt media Mub?

Mub

Says the man asking for me, the man with a different opinion to be banned

you losers are living contradictions

Madfoot713

No, it means you should NOT stop talking to your friend and try to ostracize him from the industry cause your other friends say he’s an asshole. That’s fucked up.

countryfried

And judging someone by their avatar? Grow up.

Mub

lol im the one that needs growing up not the person with a cartoon babe as their avatar

if they really want to be taken seriouslyvmaybe they should stop watching cartoons for 10-14 year olds lmao

countryfried

Says the guy with an angry cartoon character avatar. Do you have any perspective to Japanese culture? Anime is consumed by everyone in Japan, regardless of age or gender. You sold yourself down the river with this comment and I’m not even sure you’re a gamer to begin with considering that our games are composed of animated characters.

Mub

being to japan, no not really, only man children and massive losers with zero social skills watch anime so don’t pull that card.

also “lol u must not be a gamer” shit i’ve been found out i must not like video games because i think anime is for losers

Mub

watch out next time you might tell me that they play video games in their spare time what a display of corruption

Steven Simmons

Have we gotten Patrick or Alex to comment on this stuff? I’ve followed Patrick since he was at 1Up and Alex since he was at Gamespot. Just curious if they have replied to a polite inquiry.

Not sure how someone not quoting someone in articles they write is a scandal? This is just entertainment journalists discussing wether to use someone as a source. Similar things happen everywhere in every industry. Where is the scandal in this? Also, Kevin Dent seems like a pretty nasty guy.